It's Real Now
by Captain Grif
Summary: The Reds and Blues have been at it for the last 14 years with their little mock squabbles that we all love so much. But what if they actually hit the breaking point, and their insincere bickering turned into hate-fueled murder? Well, I'm just a sick enough writer to tell that story. Warning: this story is dark.


_**I'm going to warn you all now... This story is very dark. The entire concept of this story might offend you, and that is fine. I'm just warning you. This oneshot came when I thought to myself what would happen if the reds and blues actually fought for real, and it turned into this. I hope you enjoy!**_

 **It's Real Now**

"I just want everyone to know that I suck," Grif recited, head lowered in shame.

"And?" Wash called out from inside the blue base.

"And that I am a girl," Grif continued reluctantly.

"What else?" Tucker asked.

"And I like ribbons in my hair, and I want to kiss all the boys," Grif finished.

"Never gets old!" Sarge commented gleefully to Simmons.

"Us losing to the blues constantly?" Simmons asked. "It gets kinda old." Then he added quickly, "But I would never disagree with you, Sarge!"

"I'll admit, it is getting a little monotonous," Wash agreed. "Alright, you can have your flag back." Carrying the red flag, Agent Washington stepped out of the left side door of the blue base where the red team was waiting about ten yards away.

"Go on, retrieve the flag, Grif!" Sarge ordered. "Can't trust those blues. We need to send someone expendable."

Grif sighed. He really did not feel like walking over there. "Can't you send Donut?"

"Sorry," Donut objected. "I just did my nails. These puppies aren't grabbing anything for a while." Grif now understood why the pink soldier had not brought his gun. Well, he still did not understand it, but at least there was a reason.

"Fine," Grif said with a sigh.

"We'll cover you, Grif!" Simmons encouraged.

"No!" Sarge declared, "No need to waste the ammunition! Besides, that would disrespect Grif's inevitable sacrifice!"

"Whatever," Grif declared, walking towards blue base. "We all know they're not going to kill me." Grif remembered when he was worried about being killed by blues, but that was years ago. Since then, the blues helped them fight O'Malley, expose Project Freelancer, and even fight the Meta. There was even talk about working together again to go save Church from the UNSC facility that he had been brought to in that weird, AI container thing. Grif thought that was a stupid idea, though, since it was the UNSC who had given them their new bases. Regardless, the "war," if you could call it that, with the blues had become a game that maybe only Sarge took seriously, but Grif was sick of it.

"Alright, give me the flag, Wash," Grif said, holding out his hand expectantly.

"Here you go," The soldier in the blue and yellow armor handed Grif the red flag.

Suddenly, Grif had an idea. "Hey, you took my snack cakes in that last surrender, right?"

"Yes. Why?" Washington asked, a confused tone in his voice.

"Because I'm taking them back!" Grif said confidently, walking past Washington and heading into blue base.

"Grif!" Simmons called after him. "Stop! You'll be killed!"

"Don't listen to Simmons!" Sarge yelled. "Keep up the brave work, soldier!"

"Stop, Grif," said Wash, walking after the orange soldier. "Get out of here!"

"Or what?" Grif asked, rummaging through a cupboard. "We all know you're not going to shoot me! Ah, here we are!" Grif held up the ten boxes of Little Debbie snack cakes.

"You surrendered to us. We won. Those are ours."

"Are they? I think that's called stealing. I'm getting out of here." Grif headed for the exit. He heard someone run up behind him, and he felt a hand grab him by the arm and spin him around. The aqua-colored helmet of Tucker was staring at him.

"Dude! Give those back!" Tucker demanded.

"No! They're mine!" Grif refused, backing out of blue base.

"Come on, man. Don't make me do this." Tucker raised his battle rifle to Grif's head.

Grif laughed, "Man, I know you're not going to do it. This whole 'red versus blue' thing is a sham. I'm ending it now."

"You know this is how it works, dude. You're a red. I'm a blue. I have a gun. You stand down." Tucker was advancing towards Grif. "It's always been like this."

"Don't be a fool, Grif!" Simmons called from behind. Grif could feel his team getting closer.

"A surrender is a surrender, Grif," Wash declared, standing next to Tucker.

"Why are you all still acting like this?" Grif asked, chuckling. "None of it matters! There's no real fight! I'm taking my snack cakes!"

"Give those back, red!" Tucker shouted, suddenly grabbing at the boxes in Grif's hands.

Boxes fell to the ground, but Grif struggled for the ones that he and Tucker were still holding. Tucker's grip was strong, and Grif could feel that he was in a losing battle. Acting impulsively, he put his hand on Tucker's visor and began pushing his head back. He felt the sting of Tucker punching him in the side. Grif responded by going for the face.

Bang!

Grif did not realize what happened at first. He looked down and could see that the twisted and battered snack cake boxes had been stained red. Who would let that happen to snack cakes? Grif was having trouble breathing. He put his hand to his unarmored throat and felt a sharp, burning pain.

Grif toppled to the ground. Had Tucker really shot him? He could see Tucker standing above him, shaking.

"No, no, no. No. Grif!" the aqua-colored soldier exclaimed, voice breaking. "This isn't happening."

Even though his vision was blurring, Grif could see a pink soldier bending over him, trying to put pressure on his neck. It sounded like he was crying.

"You shot him! You dirty blue! I'll kill you!" Simmons voice.

"What have you done, Tucker?" Was that Washington?

Grifs head rolled back. Stars were flooding his vision. The voices drifted away. The last thing Grif saw was Sarge, standing motionless and silent.

* * *

"They killed him, Sarge!" Simmons yelled, fastening extra ammunition to his chest. "You were right about them all along!" Sarge said nothing. He was sitting in the corner of red base, staring at the shotgun in his limp hands. Donut was rocking back and forth sobbing uncontrollably. Useless. Why weren't any of them helping?

"Lopez!" Simmons roared. "Where's that rocket launcher?"

Simmons had no idea what the robot said. It was in Spanish, as always, but it sounded sarcastic.

"Just shut up!" Simmons screamed. He swung his battle rifle like a bat and hit the robot in his metal head. "You stupid, useless machine! Why haven't you ever learned English?" He began hitting the robot over and over, expecting Sarge to stop him, but the old red soldier was frozen in place. "Grif is dead, but you don't care, do you? You've never cared about any of us!"

Simmons stared at the twisted heap of brown metal on the ground. Whatever. It was just a robot. It didn't matter.

"Stop crying, Donut!" Simmons yelled. Donut continued to bawl. "STOP!"

Donut stood up. His voice shaking as if it was about to break into another torrent of sobs at any moment, he said, "W-what are we going to do."

"We're going to get justice that's what! It's what Grif deserves."

"You want to… to kill Tucker?" Donut asked, understanding in his voice.

"Of course I want to kill Tucker!" Simmons exploded. "He ruined everything! He deserves to die!"

Simmons expected Donut to object, but to his surprise, the pink soldier just nodded and said, "Okay."

"Sarge, you coming?" Simmons asked.

Wordlessly, Sarge stood up, shouldered his shotgun, and headed out the door. Simmons followed, his breath coming faster with each step. Never before had he felt like this, so broken and yet, so unstoppable. Visions of him killing Tucker with his bare hands flooded his mind. Nothing was going to stand between him and that blue scumbag.

Washington was waiting for them outside of blue base. He had no weapons, but he walked towards them with arms outstretched.

"I know what you are here to do," he said. "Please, hear me out first. I'm unarmed."

"Talk fast, then," Simmons demanded.

"Look," Washington began. "What happened today was a tragedy, and we need to mourn Grif, but we can't let emotions drive us to make the situation worse than it is. Tucker is as broken up about Grif's death as any of us. Probably more than any of us. Killing him won't bring Grif back, it will only add another unfortunate death to this incident."

"He murdered Grif, though!" Donut declared. "We were all supposed to be friends!"

"You're right, and we can all still be friends. Church needs us to go after him. We can't do that if we're all killing each other."

"Who said anything about killing each other?" Simmons asked. "We just want Tucker. You can stay out of it."

"I'm not going to let you do that," Washington said. "Please. This is my fault. I should have ended this stupid 'red versus blue' game when we got to Valhalla. I just thought you all weren't taking it seriously. I had no idea that this would happen. Blame me, if anyone, not Tucker. It was just an accident."

" _Just_ an accident?" Simmons seethed. "Grif is dead. Maybe he meant nothing to you, Freelancer, but he was one of us. You Freelancer's don't think our lives matter, do you?"

"That's not true, and you know-"

"Move!" Simmons commanded raising his gun to Washington.

"No," Wash replied. Standing his ground defiantly.

There was another gunshot. Wash fell to the ground, a bullet hole in his visor. Simmons looked down at his gun in confusion. He didn't fire the shot. He turned to see Donut with his smoking gun still raised. He was shaking.

"He… he wouldn't move," Donut stammered.

Sarge walked up to Washington's body and prodded it with his foot. "Dead," he said with no emotion in his voice.

"Good job Donut," Simmons said flatly, not entirely sure of his own words. "He shot you once before remember? It was… It was justice."

Donut sniffed, "Let's just get Tucker and end this."

They moved into blue base. Simmons called Tucker's name, but the aqua soldier was nowhere to be seen. Simmons did find Caboose, though, hiding under a bed and drinking orange juice through a straw.

"Where's Tucker?" Simmons asked after the blue soldier came out from his hiding place.

"Tucker? Oh Tucker…" Caboose began. "Yea, uh, Tucker said not to tell you guys that he was on top of the base, so instead I will say he is in the base because that's the only other part of the base."

"On top of the base, huh?" said Simmons. "Sarge, Donut, let's go."

"Wait!" Caboose objected. "He said he did not want to see his friends today, and I am supposed to keep you all away."

"Caboose, do you know what's happened?" Donut asked.

"Yea, um, of course I know what's happened, duh! How dumb do you think I am? Grif is asleep."

"Grif's not asleep he's…" Simmons stopped. He did not know if Caboose understood the concept. "Whatever, we're going to have a talk with Tucker."

"Um, nope, that's the thing you weren't supposed to do," Caboose objected. He moved into the way of the three men, and extended his arms out, pushing both Sarge and Simmons into Donut. Simmons had forgotten how strong the blue was. He tried to push past, but was unable to.

"Move!" Simmons yelled. He put all his weight into Caboose, but nothing happened. His vision began to turn red and he felt tears squeeze out of the corners of his eyes. Grif, Wash, even Lopez. What was going on?

"You stupid, stupid blue!" Simmons shouted.

"Hey, that's not nice," Caboose scolded.

There was no getting past. Simmons began throwing fists at Caboose in frustration, hitting him over and over. He must have awoken something inside of Caboose, for he felt the blue retaliate. Powerful arms wrapped around him and began to crush his bones. Simmons gasped for air.

"Stop Caboose!" Donut yelled, voice breaking with tears once again.

Simmons felt his bones snap, and was barely able to get off a few shots with his battle rifle. He shot Caboose in the legs, and as they fell to the ground, in the chest. His broken body was covered in the blue soldier's blood. The excruciating pain began to fade away. He could see Sarge standing over him. Simmons wasn't able to open his mouth to say goodbye to his leader and father figure before he slipped away.

* * *

"Tucker!" he heard Sarge roar his name from below, inside the base.

Tucker sat on the edge of the roof, watching the rainbows that the waterfall made. Why had he never stopped to appreciate this beautiful sight? Every color gathered side by side, including red and blue. How come they seemed to get along so well?

Tucker looked down at the battle rifle resting in his armored lap. Why in the world did he ever let himself believe he could be anything close to a hero? It was clear to everyone that he was a good-for-nothing pervert and slacker. Now he could finally see what everyone else had always seen.

"Tucker," he heard Donut's voice behind him, but he did not turn to look. "You've ruined everything! Everyone was happy and friends and we all loved each other. Now they're all dead! Grif, Simmons, Wash, and Caboose. They're dead! Why did you do it?"

"I don't know," Tucker whispered. "Things had finally gotten somewhat normal, and Grif was trying to change everything. I didn't know what to do."

"So you shot him?" Donut seemed on the verge of tears.

"I guess so. It happened so fast… How could it go so wrong? How could I be such a… such a…" He could not find a word that could describe how much he hated himself. "You've come to kill me, right?" Donut didn't answer. "You probably should, you know."

"I know," Donut answered. Tucker felt the barrel of a gun push against the back of his helmet. He closed his eyes, but fear began to well up in his heart. He wished more than anything that he had the courage to die, to end this pain in his soul. But he didn't.

Tucker turned in a flash, slicing above Donut's shoulders with the blue blade of his sword. The pink helmet fell to the floor and rolled with its owners head still inside. The pink body stood there for a moment, gun still raised, before it crumpled to the roof of the base as well.

Tucker realised that Sarge was there. He probably had been standing there the whole time, silent. For some reason, this made Tucker laugh.

"You happy now, old man?" Tucker wheezed through fits of crazed laughter. "Isn't this what you wanted? Grif dead, and reds and blues killing eachother like we're supposed to? This is what you've been asking for!"

"I know," Sarge said softly.

"You gonna kill me, now? Use that shotgun you love so much?"

"I don't know," Sarge whispered. "I mean, I always liked to talk about fightin' blues, but that was just talk. Now that it's real, I... You see, back when I was an ODST it was real. I saw terrible things, and I lost plenty of comrades. So when I got to Blood Gulch, I was relieved. I had soldiers to boss around, but there weren't any real consequences."

"So you're trying to tell me you never wanted this?" Tucker asked.

"Oh I wanted this, you bet your brisket," Sarge explained, "but deep-down what I really wanted was for everything to stay the same. I just didn't know it. I never really wanted Grif to die, I just wanted someone to kick around a little. I reckon that some part of me thought that if I always made sure I was the crazy one who was pushing for war, no one else would, and everything would stay status-quo." Sarge's head lowered. "Now I realise I was just the one who was keeping us all fighting until something like this inevitably happened."

Tucker began to laugh again. What a fool. The reds and blues had been fighting for years. What did he think was going to happen?

Tucker saw everything clearly now. It was all Sarge's fault. If it wasn't for him, they would all be in the same base by now, sharing supplies, and getting along like normal people. The whole, stupid red versus blue, blue versus red game had been perpetuated by Sarge.

No longer.

Tucker would end it.

Sarge didn't resist. The blade of Tucker's energy sword slid up through the chestplate of Sarge's armor, sticking out his back. Tucker felt Sarge grab his sword arm tightly, instinctively struggling for life. Then the red soldier's fingers relaxed, and his body went limp.

Tucker let Sarge's lifeless corpse slide off his blade. It was over. No more red. No more blue. He found a magnum on Donut's lifeless thigh. Maybe now he would have the strength to do what needed to be done. Tucker pressed the barrel of the pistol against the bottom of his chin and squeezed the trigger.

They had been fools to think reds and blues could coexist.

 _ **Well, what do you think? I know that the reds and blues would never actually be capable of killing eachother... or would they? But for real, leave your reviews and feel free to tell me how I am a terrible person for writing this. I would like to leave you with a question though. In a fair fight (that was not all tangled up in emotion or other circumstances) which of the reds and blues would prove to be the strongest? Thanks for reading and God bless!**_


End file.
